In her wildest dreams, Mildred never expected to be an inspiration. At age 62 she was caring for her husband during his losing battle with colon cancer. Previously even-keeled, the past eight months had turned her logical world upside down. Her emotions had become erratic. She could understand feeling unbearable sadness and grief, because she loved her husband. She would miss him terribly. Occasionally anger crept in; anger at her husband for leaving her to be a widow at age 62, and anger at God for allowing it to happen. She often felt fear due to the uncertainty of her future alone. When it was clear he would not recover, she experienced guilt for hoping he would die sooner rather than later. She didn’t want him to suffer any longer.
Fortunately, her unsettling emotions started to lift as his death became imminent. She started experiencing clarity, and her erratic emotions were replaced with a sense of acceptance. She gave herself permission to ponder her future without him, and she realized she was in control. She knew what was expected of her. As a widow, she should dote on her two granddaughters, become more involved with her church, and make her incredible lemon-meringue pies for picnics. Major changes to her prior lifestyle would be frowned upon. She envisioned being a housewife without a husband. (Maybe that is the unspoken definition of a widow.) Lord knows everyone places expectations on us. Could she – would she – dare to challenge those expectations? Thoughts of continuing her past lifestyle for the rest of her life felt confining, and she realized she wanted more. She wanted far more. She wanted to have fun.
Having fun is certainly not associated with becoming a widow, but why not? She was only 62, and she suspected she had another 20 years to live. She had always loved to travel, but she and her husband had traveled very little. This was probably because they lived a frugal lifestyle. To afford to travel as a widow would require creativity on her part. Mildred was strong-willed and determined, and she embraced the challenge. She had always been a bit boisterous and spunky, but these traits had been suppressed all her adult life. She deliberately pondered what she wanted her life to look like for her remaining years, and she became excited about combining lots of traveling with fun.
She started planning a different lifestyle that would provide plenty of fun and travel for her remaining 20 plus years. She surprised herself by feeling wonderment and glee — almost childlike excitement — as she realized she could create the lifestyle she wanted.
She didn’t realize it at the time, but she was choosing to blossom.
Mildred was my grandmother. I wish she were here to tell her story, but she is not. I believe she would say that she unleashed her true self when she became a widow. The changes my grandmother made did not come naturally. They were intentional. She defied the expectations others placed on her. She had to dig deep to find fortitude. Once she made up her mind, she implemented her plan.
I have learned from the way my grandmother chose to blossom. She was a trailblazer who made significant changes in her pursuit of a happier life. At the time, I don’t think Mildred ever expected to become a role model. However, as I uncovered memories of my childhood during the past several years, I realized Mildred has become my role model. She was truly an inspiration.
I am sharing her story because I hope it will encourage you to embark on a journey to create a better future. You may have someone in your past you want to use as your role model as you make changes to become happier and wiser. Maybe it is not a grandparent. Perhaps it is a parent, a distant relative, a neighbor, or a friend. If someone comes to mind, I encourage you to contemplate memories of that person. Invite those memories to come to the surface, so you can “noodle” them. As you look back at the initial memories with curiosity, more vivid memories may surface. Recall conversations you had with that person, or interesting things they did. Ask other family members or friends to discuss their memories of that person. You can start to create a fuller image of the person, and what you can learn from them. It is irrelevant that they may no longer be living, so having a discussion with them is not possible. It is your “perception” that matters. If you do not have a role model, I encourage you to use my grandmother—Mildred—as your role model. She would be honored.
Before Blossoming
To my sister and me Mildred was “Grandma Skeels”. She was born in Evansville, Indiana in 1904. Her ancestors came to America from England in 1856. Using the extensive research provided by a distant relative on the family’s roots, I learned that several of her ancestors were orphaned, and there was plenty of hardship in her family. From notes in her Bible, I learned that she and my grandfather, Edgar, got married in 1924 when they were both 20 years old, and she had my father when she was 25. Early in my grandmother and grandfather’s marriage they owned a diner called the Pink Flamingo in Evansville. Mildred was an excellent cook, and I suspect her cooking skills were fine-tuned by cooking at the diner. While growing up I always wondered why there were pink flamingo statues in my grandmother’s backyard. Now I know.
In 1935, my grandfather began working at the local Sunbeam Electric plant, which was a major employer in Evansville. My grandmother became a housewife at that time. Whirlpool bought Sunbeam in 1956. During his 32 years with the company, my grandfather rose through the ranks, from working on an assembly line all the way to the top as Plant Supervisor for Whirlpool. I have his retirement certificate which states my grandfather retired on July 1, 1967 as a “Lifetime Associate of Whirlpool.”
My grandparents’ marriage spanned 53 years. I was nine when my grandfather died in 1967 at age 62 while anti-war protests over the Vietnam War were raging on college campuses.
I don’t have too many memories of my grandfather. I would not describe him as a warm or cuddly grandpa. I recall once that my grandmother got a kitten and hid it in the basement. He made her give it back because he would not allow her to have a cat. He ruled the roost in their marriage. None of this is a surprise. In traditional marriages throughout the 1900s, the husband made most of the decisions. I later learned that people who knew him (including his employees) admired him for his integrity and honesty.
My grandfather was highly respected in the community, and hundreds of people came to the funeral home during the four days of rituals following his death. The rituals followed in southern Indiana at that time included three nights of “visitation” with an open casket. Although I was only nine, I recall being appalled by the permanent smiles on the funeral home employees. I’ll never forget watching my grandmother walk to the casket with visitors who repeatedly made comments such as “Oh – doesn’t he look good,” “Why did he have to die so young?” and “He was such a good man.” I was saddened that my grandmother had to endure that. I would have preferred for everyone to remember my grandfather through a photo on the casket taken when he was healthy and attractive, rather than in an open casket with his face and hands covered with makeup to cover his gray skin caused by cancer.
The three days of visitation were followed by an incredibly long fourth day, starting with the funeral, followed by a procession of cars filled with family and friends from the funeral home to the cemetery, another service at the cemetery, and a pot-luck social gathering at someone’s home. Everyone in my family was exhausted by the “pomp and circumstance.” I suspect Mildred was mentally and physically exhausted.
Mildred Chooses to Blossom
Mildred remained strong and steadfast during the four days following her husband’s death. She fulfilled her duty. She loved my grandfather, and she had been working through her grief while caring for him for many months before his death.
However, near the end she found her thoughts drifting to the future. Mildred recognized this was her chance to blossom, and she was not going to pass up the opportunity. She didn’t want to stay on the same path she had followed her entire adult life. That would have been the easy choice. She wanted to become happier, but that required making significant changes.
She wanted to travel and have fun, and shortly after my grandfather died, she began organizing senior citizen bus tours. I don’t know if this was her idea and she sought out the opportunity from a local travel company, or if they approached her. She persuaded her friends from church to go on the trips, and they invited their friends to go along. Her network of friends grew quickly. She organized people to bake cookies and brownies, and she led the songs from the front of the bus. She became a social butterfly! The trips went all over the U.S. I kept her song sheets after she died.
She loved to travel, but had seldom left southern Indiana during her life, probably due to a lack of money. Suddenly she was exploring new places and having a blast. She had a Kodak carousel slide projector, and she showed us endless slides after each trip. She did not even try to contain her enthusiasm. As I look back on her life, her transformation from traditional housewife to bus tour organizer was nothing short of amazing. She became a source of joy for those around her.
She had a companion named Jim Pearson. I don’t think they were romantically involved, but I’ll never know. He also loved to travel and have fun, and they were the best of friends until she died at age 81. I adored Jim and his cheerful personality.
I would not describe my grandmother as pretty in her later years. She reminded me of Eleanor Roosevelt, who I would define as remarkable but not attractive. Eleanor Roosevelt was an impressive stateswoman during her husband’s presidential terms, and she was a prolific writer until her death at age 78. I recently found a photo of my grandmother as a young woman, and she was beautiful. Likewise, Eleanor Roosevelt was striking as a young girl. We place far too much attention today on physical looks as we grow older, rather than on inner values and accomplishments.
Mildred’s Financial Legacy
This story isn’t only about how Mildred reinvented herself to have more fun. There is a financial component to the story. She was smart when it came to money. When my sister and I were young, she and my grandfather decided they wanted us to go to college. We would be the first in our family to attend college, and they wanted to pay for it. They set a goal to provide $20,000 for each of us, and they started saving.
In 1975, when I left home for college, $20,000 was a huge amount of money. Including inflation, it would be well over $100,000 today. I don’t think all the money had been saved by the time my grandfather died. His death at age 62 was not a part of their plan. He didn’t intend to retire early, so he would have worked several more years. In those days, men often worked until age 65 and died a short while later. They got a gold watch when they retired, but they never had a chance to enjoy retirement activities, such as spending time with their grandkids, focusing on a hobby, or traveling. Or—as in my grandfather’s case—many did not live long enough to retire at age 65. This has changed in the past 50 years. People are living longer and are planning for retirement. I recommend my clients assume they will live until 95 so their retirement may last 30 to 35 years. Blossoming in your 50s, 60s, or 70s still gives you plenty of years to enjoy your new lifestyle.
Despite my grandfather’s death, I believe my grandmother continued to save after he died.
During my childhood I did not know that my grandparents were saving money for my education. It was all done without any fanfare, and I didn’t learn about it until I was about age 15. When I left Evansville to attend Indiana University in Bloomington at age 17, my grandmother put $20,000 into a bank account in my name, and I was told to “stretch it” so it would get me through four years of college and maybe more.
At age 17, I had no understanding of the sacrifices my grandparents had made. With their goal of saving $20,000 for my sister and me, they had chosen to place their needs and wants on the back burner. They were not wealthy; if they were not working to save money so we could attend college, they could have had a bigger house, eaten out more, or had nicer clothes. This is a classic example of saving for a long-term goal and not giving in to immediate gratification.
Now that I am older and wiser, I have realized that my grandmother played a major role in my life. The fact that my grandparents paid for my education was significant/instrumental/pivotal in shaping my future (or use the concept of influencing and shaping my future). But she also taught me about finances. She is likely the reason I chose to become a financial planner as a second career. She is why I am so intrigued by the relationship between money and happiness, which led to my first book, The Joy of Financial Security. And through her actions after becoming a widow, she is helping me blossom, while encouraging me to teach other women how to make changes to become happier. As I write this book, I have felt her presence and her guidance.
As I ponder how she impacted my life, I realize she found subtle ways to teach me about money. I remember my grandmother helping my sister and me open a “Christmas account” at a local bank when I was about age 10. (Evansville did not have much diversity, so the banks called them Christmas accounts, ignoring the fact that many people of other faiths and religions did not celebrate Christmas.) The idea was that you could deposit $1 per week for 48 weeks (January through November), and by early December, the bank would give you $50 that could be used for buying Christmas gifts. The extra $2 was interest paid by the bank. This was a brilliant marketing strategy for teaching kids (and adults) the concept of earning interest, while saving consistently for a future goal. It also got kids comfortable with the bank, and if they stayed in Evansville for their entire lives, they would likely become customers for life.
When I was in college, my grandmother asked me to help her organize her year-end documents for her tax preparer. She had an accountant who charged $25 to prepare her taxes each year. He was also an attorney who drew up her will, and his strategy was to prepare taxes for a low price, but to make sure he could settle the estate (and charge a hefty fee) when a family member died. He earned his living from settling estates. His strategy worked well, because he settled my grandfather’s and my grandmother’s estate. (When I later earned a Certified Financial Planner’s® license and became a fiduciary for my financial planning clients, this strategy felt highly unethical, but the term fiduciary and ethics were not common terms in the late 1970s.)
I occasionally came home from college on weekends, and I helped my grandmother organize her tax documents in early March each year. She was not wealthy, but she had about eight bank accounts scattered throughout Evansville. Most contained only a few thousand dollars, and one was used as her checking account. Having multiple accounts accomplished two things: first, she would get a free mixer or toaster when she opened a new bank account, and, second, she never wanted anyone to know how much money she had. This was typical, and surprisingly, it is still common. Throughout my 22-year financial planning career, I found that people tend to open new accounts and they rarely close the old ones. I often recommend that my clients consolidate their investment and bank accounts to simplify their finances.
I recently realized that helping my sister and me open a Christmas bank account each year and asking me to help her organize her tax documents each spring were ways that my grandmother was teaching me about money. Looking back, I don’t believe any of my grandmother’s actions were coincidental or accidental. She decided at some point that she wanted to teach me practical lessons about managing money.
I did not know much about my grandmother’s finances, except that I knew she monitored her checkbook closely. I suspect she had a pension from Whirlpool, and she received a small amount of Social Security income each month.
I recall that my grandmother mentioned once that if she signed up 10 or 12 senior citizens for a bus tour, then her trip was free. I suspect she was usually traveling for free. When we visited her, she was often on the phone, talking with her friends and telling them about the upcoming bus tour. She was an entrepreneur and a smart businesswoman. Organizing bus tours was not a hobby—it was her job. She worked hard persuading people to sign up for the bus tours, and she worked as a tour guide during the trips. However, because she loved traveling, it didn’t feel like a job. Throughout her 60s she managed to do extensive traveling while she was still saving the $20,000 for my sister and me.
Most of the tours were bus trips within the lower 48 United States, but a few were not. I recall she organized a trip to Hawaii, and in 1967 she organized a tour that went to Oberammergau, Germany, to see the Passion Play. I have many of the slides she took during those trips. She continued traveling until she was in her late 70s.
When I left for college, my grandmother was 70. At that point she stopped worrying about money. After all, she had already accomplished the goal of financing college for her granddaughters. Looking back, I now realize how hard my grandmother worked during her 60s while still saving money for our college expenses. I’m certain I thanked her at the time, but at that age I did not understand the scope of her gift. I now recognize that her intrinsic reward was knowing she accomplished her goal, and her granddaughters would go to college. (An intrinsic reward is one that is felt deeply; one that brings true joy.)
Being told it was my job to stretch $20,000 through at least four years of college taught
me how to handle money. I had to watch my expenses closely; there was not extra money for unnecessary clothes or pizzas. I paid my tuition, my room and board, and all my expenses with the $20,000 for four years. My parents and my grandmother did not hover over me or micromanage how I was handling the money. It was up to me to make it work.
I am pleased to say that I was able to stretch that $20,000 through four years of college, and a bit further. When I graduated with an undergraduate degree in psychology from Indiana University, I had approximately $1,500 of the $20,000 remaining. I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico and quickly found a job. About a year later, I decided to go to graduate school for an MBA degree, and I took out a small student loan to pay the tuition. I had a part-time job at IBM that helped pay for my living expenses. When I completed the graduate degree, I accepted a full-time job, and I repaid the loan within three years.
My grandmother—and my financial planning career—has shown me how grandparents can have a positive financial impact on their grandchildren. Often, young women are just trying to keep all the balls in the air while we are raising children and building a career. There is never enough time or money during those years. However, the dynamics often change significantly by the time we have grandchildren. We may be retired, our lives are less hectic, and we have an opportunity to teach our grandchildren about finances. I believe this includes telling them not only about the smart money decisions we made, but also about the financial mistakes. Young children and teenagers will often listen to their grandparents, even though they will not listen to their parents. This is a golden opportunity to pass down financial lessons, and I have always encouraged my clients to focus on this opportunity.
Warm Memories
This book is about becoming happier and wiser. Becoming happier has many components, and I am a firm believer that we can find great pleasure in pondering warm memories from the past. Author Paule Marshall said:
Sometimes a person has to go back, really back—
to have a sense, an understanding of all
that’s gone to make them—
before they can go forward.
If you have chosen a role model from your past, I encourage you to take the time to dwell on some happy memories. This is not to suggest that you or I had idyllic childhoods. We may have had to endure tremendous hardship. However, even among the pain, there may be some happy memories. I encourage you to explore some of the happy memories.
Not all my memories of my grandmother involve money. After my grandfather died, I remember staying overnight on Saturdays at my grandmother’s house. I have warm memories of watching her make popcorn, and then eating it (with plenty of butter) while watching The Lawrence Welk Show. I kept her pot with the copper lid, and it still makes great popcorn! I realized many years later, Saturday night was “date night” for my parents, so my sister and I would go to Grandma Skeels’ house. For breakfast, she would make my sister French toast, and she would make cinnamon toast for me.
My parents, my sister, and I would often go to my grandmother’s house for Thursday dinner. She was a great cook. Her chicken and dumplings were incredible, and she used yellow food coloring to make her dumplings bright yellow! Her lemon meringue pie was delicious, and it was also enhanced with yellow food coloring. She was a character, and these little memories bring me joy. She lived in a small two-bedroom, one bathroom house. I remember the kitchen well, with its Sunbeam white stove and Whirlpool refrigerator. When I learned recently that my grandfather worked for Sunbeam before it was purchased by Whirlpool, the brands of her appliances made sense.
The kitchen was the first room when you entered the house through the back door from the driveway. You climbed a few steps, and you were in the kitchen. I remember being amazed at how my grandmother glided about in her kitchen. It was a square, efficient layout, and she was comfortable moving about quickly. The kitchen led into a dining room and then into her living room. The two bedrooms were behind the kitchen, with a bathroom between them. To reach a bathroom you had to go through one of the bedrooms. There was not a guest bathroom as is common today. I don’t think it ever occurred to her that she lived in a small house. She appreciated her home, her family, and her friends. Life was simpler then with fewer possessions and expectations.
I kept her antique game table from her living room, which contained a secret, hidden compartment. My grandmother kept extra money there along with her important documents, and she showed me several times how to find the hidden compartment. I suspect I may be more nostalgic than some, but I have found keeping a few nice items from her gives me joy and helps me keep memories of her alive.
I remember watching the Rose Bowl parade on TV on New Year’s Day morning with my grandmother. My parents would go to New Year’s Eve parties, so my sister and I would spend the night with my grandmother. She loved the Rose Bowl parade. After I left for college, and when I was in my 20s, she would call me on New Year’s Day morning and ask, “Do you have the parade on?” At the time, this reminded me a bit of the lady in the old Wendy’s commercials who barked “Where’s the Beef?” but I came to love the fact that my grandmother always called to remind me to turn on the parade.
I still watch the parades on TV on the mornings of Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, and it brings back fond memories of my grandmother. If my daughters have children, I will pass along the love of parades to them—rituals and nostalgic memories enrich our lives.
My grandmother loved to make divinity candy every Christmas. Divinity is very thick, and my grandmother only had a hand-held mixer she had received from opening one of her many bank accounts. She never had a heavy-duty stand mixer (which would have worked well for divinity). Each year when we made divinity, the motor of the hand mixer would work as hard as it could on the heavy batter, but it would eventually start to smoke and the motor would sputter and die. My grandmother would laugh, knowing she could get another hand mixer by opening another bank account.
My grandmother was brave, and she didn’t hesitate to go out on a limb. She began to end our phone conversations (beginning when I was in college) with “I love you.” Our family did not express emotions, so this initially sounded foreign to me. Hugs and signs of affection were rare when I was growing up. It took me a while to get used to hearing her say “I love you” and to start saying “I love you, too” back to her, but it felt so “right.” In this sense, I believe she broke through the barriers my family had established as she blossomed. My husband and I now end our phone conversations with our daughters (in their late 20s) with “I love you.” This originated with my grandmother, and I give her credit for laying the groundwork for a powerful habit for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She recognized she had the right to make changes as she blossomed, and she made many positive changes.
After finishing my undergraduate degree in Indiana and moving to New Mexico, my grandmother visited me several times in Albuquerque. I have fond memories of going to the flea market on Saturday mornings together. I also recall meeting her during one of her bus trips in Phoenix, Arizona. (This was when Southwest Airlines had $19 flights between Albuquerque and Phoenix.) We always had fun when we were together. She was quick to laugh and try new things. I remember walking through a cactus garden with her in Scottsdale, Arizona, and getting our shoes full of cactus needles. Afterward, we picked the needles out of our shoes while we laughed.
My grandmother was frugal in the way she handled money, but I recently learned of an exception she made. My husband and I traveled in Europe a few years ago, and I came across the same Swiss music box that she bought for me and for my sister over 50 years ago when she traveled to Germany to see the Passion Play. I suspect her tour group also stopped in Switzerland. The music box is still being made in Switzerland, and it is quite expensive.
I had no idea that the music box she gave me many years ago was expensive. She never mentioned the price. This exemplifies the concept of “selective frugality,” and I am a huge proponent of the idea. We can be incredibly frugal in most areas of our lives, but we can splurge on something that brings us joy. Clearly, buying a nice music box for her granddaughters brought her joy. My sister and I still have our music boxes, and listening to the music (yes, mine still works!) makes me happy and helps me remember my grandmother.
Not all of my memories are happy ones. We need to acknowledge that our relatives are real people, with emotions that range from laughter and joy to sadness and despair. I would describe the following memories of my grandmother as poignant. Although they are not necessarily happy memories, they enrich my life.
I recall the extreme disappointment that my grandmother felt around the Christmas holidays after my parents divorced (when I was 19). She loved Christmas, and she always tried to make it special for my sister and me. I fondly remember her silver aluminum Christmas tree with the colorful spotlight wheel that rotated, projecting colors on the tree. It sat in the corner of her living room every December, looking very festive. Silver trees are back in style now as retro Christmas decorations from the 1960s. My grandmother’s mood was always impacted when my dad was drinking during the holidays, which happened frequently. My mother and father were both alcoholics, and I saw similar behavior from my mother’s parents. My grandparents could not hide their disappointment at not being able to “fix” the alcoholism.
Divorce causes riffs throughout the entire family, even when both spouses try to create the best situation for the kids. After my parents divorced, we had two gatherings on holidays; one at my grandmother’s house (Mildred) with my dad, and one at my grandparent’s house on my mom’s side. Everyone put on their best “happy” face, trying to make the best of a bad situation. I found the gatherings very sad, and it wasn’t because I wanted my mom and dad to get back together. I wanted them to each find happiness after their divorce. The sadness I felt was due to the heartache their divorce caused my grandparents. Unfortunately, this is very common now because so many families have experienced divorce. Both of my parents died in their 60s due to their heavy drinking, and my emotions when thinking of them have run the gamut—from anger and curiosity, eventually replaced (after many years) with acceptance and forgiveness.
During 1985, Mildred went to her family physician several times, complaining of abdominal pain. Her doctor said it was “just arthritis,” and he never ordered any tests. Colon cancer was diagnosed when she had rectal bleeding, and clearly, the cancer had spread throughout her abdomen and bones by that point. She endured radiation treatments in 1986 that were futile. She showed me the large, raw burn on her torso caused by the radiation. It was horrendous. I’ll never forget that when she knew she was dying, she said to me one day when I was visiting, “Donna, I don’t know why I can’t cry. I want to cry, and I cannot.” I shrugged off her comment, with some nonsense, such as “Well Grandma, I don’t know.” My grandmother could not cry because she had been taught from a very young age, that women are not to ever cry. She came from “strong stock”, which was common for women born in that era. Fortunately, in the past 20 or so years, most women and men have given themselves permission to “feel” and show emotions honestly.
I would hope — if this happened now — that I would be able to give her a long, warm hug, and we could have cried together.
Both of my grandmothers died in 1986 when I was 28. I recently came to a new realization about Mildred. I find that if we ponder the relatives we loved, new memories rise to the surface occasionally. While writing this book I realized that after my parents divorced when I was 19, I never heard Mildred say an unkind word about my mother. I concluded that my grandmother was nonjudgmental, which is a trait I admire greatly. When my grandmother on my mom’s side died in early 1986, Mildred was in the midst of radiation treatments for colon cancer. She had already showed me the burn. Despite being in pain, she went to the funeral home to show respects to my other grandmother (Alma). I suspect this may be the first time she had seen my mother in the almost 10 years since my parents’ divorce. Looking back, I am certain she wanted to show respect to my mother in addition to my mother’s mother. Although she was saddened by my parents’ divorce, she did not harbor any ill will toward my mother.
Summary
My grandmother was an incredible woman. She chose to blossom at age 62 after my grandfather died, and she started leading senior citizen bus tours. She created a new lifestyle filled with traveling and fun. She achieved a lifetime goal of saving $20,000 each so my sister and I could go to college. She was willing to live a frugal lifestyle to save money, and accomplishing this goal brought her tremendous joy. This demonstrates the relationship between money and happiness, and the power of staying focused on a long-term goal. Moreover, she left a legacy of teaching her granddaughter to say “I love you” at the end of phone calls, which is now being passed down to younger generations in my family.
Mildred died in August 1986 at the age of 81. She lived 19 years after becoming a widow and choosing to blossom. She filled those 19 years with loads of laughter, happiness, and travel.
I became close with my grandmother during my teenage years and my 20s, and I am grateful for those years with her. I was 62 as I contemplated writing this book, which was the age when Mildred became a widow. As memories of her rose to the surface, I realized she was truly an inspiration and a role model. We all have room for improvement in our lives, and in our quest to become happier and wiser—and to learn how to flourish—we can draw from Mildred for strength and inspiration.
